Great Expectations

Charles Dickens

Aug 2014 · First Avenue Editions ™

About this ebook

Pip is a young orphan who wants nothing more than to become a gentleman and be worthy of the beautiful but snobby Estella. So when he receives a large fortune from an unknown benefactor to undergo training, he's ecstatic and convinced it must be from Miss Havisham, Estella's strange guardian. However, the culture of wealth breeds changes in Pip that his loyal friends find insulting. It may take the unsavory criminal from Pip's childhood to help him get his priorities in order and reset his expectations. Taken from the 1867 copyright edition, this is an unabridged version of English author Charles Dickens's classic tragic comedy.

About the author

Charles Dickens, perhaps the best British novelist of the Victorian era, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England on February 7, 1812. His happy early childhood was interrupted when his father was sent to debtors' prison, and young Dickens had to go to work in a factory at age twelve. Later, he took jobs as an office boy and journalist before publishing essays and stories in the 1830s. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers, made him a famous and popular author at the age of twenty-five. Subsequent works were published serially in periodicals and cemented his reputation as a master of colorful characterization, and as a harsh critic of social evils and corrupt institutions. His many books include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations, Little Dorrit, A Christmas Carol, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, and the couple had nine children before separating in 1858 when he began a long affair with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. Despite the scandal, Dickens remained a public figure, appearing often to read his fiction. He died in 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.